Friday, December 2, 2016

On Wednesday, I had at least five of my Donald Trump-supporting friends text me to "rub it in my face" that he successfully negotiated a deal with Carrier to keep some of the planned 1,400 jobs they were going to outsource to Mexico in the United States. It was to be expected; after all, Trump was the guy who sold himself as the "hero to the American worker" and the guy who'd "bring jobs back to U.S. soil." That made the Carrier deal exactly what Trump supporters needed to point at his critics and say: See! I told you so!

Except by doing so, all these folks really did was prove what mindless sheep they are.

Sure, on the surface, this seems like a huge win for Trump just a few weeks away from officially becoming this nation's president.

It's not.

These jobs just happened to be in Indiana — the same state of which our future vice president, Mike Pence, is still governor. That's really how this deal got done. This wasn't Trump pulling off some genius legislative move, this was Mike Pence abusing his power in Indiana before he no longer has it.

In fact, late Wednesday, Carrier released a statement flat-out saying that Pence offered them "incentives" within the state to keep some of the jobs there. So, again, this deal had almost nothing to do with anything Donald Trump said or did. He's simply doing what he always does, taking credit for something that someone else actually did for him.

The ignorance of celebrating this deal goes beyond that.

Sure, it's always nice to keep jobs in the United States, but that doesn't mean at any cost. If the "incentives" offered outweigh the benefits of keeping those jobs on U.S. soil in the long-term, then it's a horrible deal. And $7 million in tax incentives is quite a lot to give a company for a few hundred jobs. Especially considering they're still outsourcing some of them. That actually goes against Trump's "big talk" where he said any company that outsourced any jobs would pay for doing so.

I guess "paying" for doing so was "Trump-speak" for… we'll give them $7 million if they don't outsource all of them.

Not only that, but are there exact stipulations? Is there a timeframe Carrier must adhere to or pay some sort of a penalty? What if two years from now they decide to go ahead and outsource these jobs anyway, what then? Do they still get to keep these "incentives"?

Then there's always the issue of those incentives and how they might impact the taxpayers. Basically, who's going to cover for that loss in revenue? Because I can promise you this much, the amount of taxes the state will earn because of the jobs that were "saved" as part of this deal won't even make a dent in the $7 million reduction in tax revenue Pence reportedly gave them. That money is going to have to come from somewhere.

See, that's how Republicans dupe naive conservative voters.

Yeah, some of the jobs Carrier had planned to send to Mexico are staying. But if "tax incentives" were offered, then it's likely that revenue will be made up somewhere else. And guess who's probably going to foot that bill? The citizens of Indiana.

Of course, that tax hike won't be directly linked to this deal. It'll be masked by some other reason so that the citizens don't have any idea why it's needed, but that won't mean that it's not directly related.

That's how trickle-down economics really works.

It gives huge tax breaks to the rich and big corporations, that are then turned into huge pay increases and bonuses for CEOs and other top-level executives — but not the average worker. Meanwhile, that tax revenue is made up by gutting vital programs average Americans use or raising taxes on the middle class in other places (usually at the state level) to cover the shortfall of revenue directly linked to those tax cuts.

In short, rich people get richer, while everyone else picks up the tab and falls further and further behind. You know, just like what's been happening for the last 40 years.

The real issue with this deal with Carrier is that, in one pathetic PR stunt, Donald Trump just handed out the blueprint that every corporation in this country can now follow if they want to try to leverage him into giving them nearly anything they want: Just threaten to outsource jobs.